


Last One(s) Standing

by T (TN_Night), TN_Night



Series: #EreriWeek2016 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Confessions, Death, EreRi Week 2016, Established Relationship, M/M, Minor Levi/Eren Yeager, Sad, Sad Ending, even though they're the main couple, microbiologists!Levi&Eren, not romantic - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 04:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6784918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TN_Night/pseuds/T, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TN_Night/pseuds/TN_Night
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren and Levi are scientists in the midst of the apocalypse, trying their best to keep moral up and to find a cure.</p>
<p>Expect a lot of shitty summaries this week.</p>
<p>Written for Ereri Week 2016. Prompt: Confession. Hope you enjoy~!</p>
<p>(Story beta'd by aelmer6 from ff.net. Thank you!!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last One(s) Standing

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t know jack about science, nor do I know anything about microbiology. Please feel free to add your wisdom in the comment section ;) Merci~

 

 

One week, three days, twenty-one hours, five minutes, and a second, two seconds, three seconds, read the clock on the wall. It was only nearing two weeks into this apocalypse and already approximately five billion of the people on earth were dead. The body count in the streets only grew higher each day and Levi was just waiting until he himself was among them. 

 

Currently, they were the only two left in the CDC building. They being Eren and Levi, two microbiologists who’d had no other family to go home to when the apocalypse had started. Mostly because they were married to each other. They’d decided that because they were both already working in the same field, it would be smart to try and save humanity together. There was no point in going home to be with someone who was already next to you. Most of the other scientists had left after a week, the rest dying in the labs when they neglected to wear full hazmat suits.

 

They’d been working, laboriously, to try to find a cure for the still-unknown disease that had started by killing everyone in their city of Druid Hills. Eren had named it early on. “E7530” was what they’d called it ever since the younger scientist had brought it up. When Levi had asked him why he’d said that it was because the damn bug had wiped out seven thousand five-hundred and thirty people over the course of a couple hours. He didn’t mention anything in particular about the “E” at the front, though. Levi guessed that it was probably because Eren needed to put his initials on everything, the self-centred prick. 

 

Who would want their name associated with the most deadly disease known to man? 

 

But Levi didn’t bother to argue; it was only a name, after all. They also had more important and pressing matters to deal with than a stupid label. Every solution they’d mixed, every compound they’d created, every kind of cure they could think of for any past illnesses the CDC had saved humanity from in the past– none of it worked. The death count was still rising, all the bodies decaying in the hot Georgian sun causing even more problems and generating more illnesses. And on top of it all, the two men were beginning to give up. Not that they would actually let humanity _die_ or anything, but after nearly a straight week and a half of trying to fix this problem and only two nights of sleep yet nothing to show for any of it, they were nearly ready to admit they _wanted_ to let the world die. 

 

The two of them were sat down at a conference table at the moment. Their hazmat suits crinkling uncomfortably under them whenever they shifted. They’d not figured out on the first day how to eat or use the lavatory with the damn things on, but after a while they finally realized they’d just have to risk leaving their protection on occasion somehow. They only ate pre-packaged food, any other source of nutrients not only being lost to the abyss of the rotting outside world, but was also most definitely infected with whatever deadly inhale-able substance was leeching through the eco-system. 

 

It was kind of funny how they’d started to horde candy and granola bars in their suits just to minimize the air-exposure, the yellow material bulging in places where stashes were kept like a chipmunk’s cheeks. 

 

Eren retracted his arms inside his suit, reaching down into his pant leg for a Coffee Crisp. Levi was already eating his lunch: a bag of chips from the (now broken) vending machine in the hall. The sound of echoing crunching and the feeling of stray crumbs down his shirt wasn’t pleasant in the least, but nothing in the apocalypse was supposed to be pleasant, so he dealt with it. 

 

“Levi?” Eren asked, looking a bit nervous but, at the same time, excited.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Do you have any drinks?”

 

Levi sighed, grabbing the half-drank water bottle from his inner-pocket and quickly tossing it out his suit, holding his breath as he did so.

 

Eren nodded in thanks and did the same in reverse, holding his breath to retrieve the bottle. They didn’t know if the breath-holding thing actually mattered, but it made them feel safer, so they did it anyway. 

 

Once it was inside his encasing, Eren unscrewed the lid, reaching back down into his pants pocket and pulling out a test-tube filled with a green-tinted liquid that was probably dyed that colour for distinction. Levi watched with wide eyes as Eren chugged the questionable substance, quickly chasing it down with the water the older man had given him.

 

“Eren, wait!” He said, a second too late.

 

Eren faltered for a second but drank down the rest of the green stuff and water before responding to the worried man.

 

“What?” He asked

 

“What the fuck did you just drink?”

 

“A possible cure I made up. It looked promising, so I wanted to see if it’d work on me.” He replied casually, beginning to strip himself of his protective gear.

 

Levi was about to start hyperventilating. They were probably two of the only people left on Earth and Eren wanted to _experiment_?! On _himself_ no less?

 

His husband was an idiot.

 

“Are you fucking _crazy?!_ We don’t even know what this shitty disease _is_ yet. You could die from stupid stunts like this, _and leave me here alone without you._ Without _anyone_!” He yelled, his panicked words muffed by the same suit that Eren had just left on the floor like a pile of fucking _garbage_ and not the thing that’s been keeping him alive this whole time.

 

Eren rushed over to his side of the table, wrapping his arms around him the best he could and holding him close, “Levi, shhh, I know this will work, trust me.”

 

“How?! How could you possibly know–”

 

Eren’s hand that’d been rubbing his back rhythmically stuttered as he cut the other man off quickly, “Because I started all this.” He said.

 

“You…” He stopped, staring off at the far wall and letting the words sink into his brain, “You started…this?”

 

Eren sighed, falling back into the chair behind him and burying his fingers in his hair, occasionally pulling on it to try to calm himself down. “Yes. I…I knew that mixing the solutions I did would have a negative result, but I swear I thought I’d isolated the mixture properly, I…” 

 

“Why didn’t…why didn’t you tell anybody?” Levi asked, still in awe.

 

“Would you have? I would’ve been imprisoned, I’d never be able to solve the problem I created. It took me a week but I got it, I did fix it. I-I fixed it, right?” His lover looked up at him with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes that Levi had only just taken notice of now. The bags underneath his eyes were just as bad, seemingly engraved in his skin, which was a sickly mixture of grey and green. 

 

“Eren, are you okay?” Levi asked, quickly jumping off his chair to grab the other male as he slumped down to the floor himself.

 

Eren nodded meekly, his breaths coming out in short ragged gasps and his lips rapidly turning a sickly blue colour, “I’ll be okay…” he managed, his voice a whisper.

 

Levi scrambled up from the floor, running to grab Eren’s discarded hazmat suit from the other side of the room. He grabbed it, tripping over two chairs in his rush to get back to his husband.

 

“Quick, put this–” He looked down, his heart sinking at the sight of his beloved staring up at the ceiling with glazed eyes, his chest unmoving and his mouth slightly agape, “on…” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually supposed to be a happily ending story, but my mind went awry and this shit happened so...sorry about that. 
> 
> And you can read this however you like, in a way where Eren did start the problem and was confessing his sins to Levi before he died like it was written, but I found that it's also kinda nice to think of it like Eren made up that whole story about creating the disease just so Levi would let him go a little easier or something. Well, anyway, I hope you liked this story ^^ Thank you for reading and constructive criticism is always welcome~


End file.
